Royal Bank of Scotland is planning to shut at least 99 branches this year as customers increasingly shift their banking habits to the web.

It will raise further fears of some communities not having physical access to high street branches.

Meeting the Commons Treasury committee yesterday (wed), Moray McDonald, a managing director at RBS, said: "We are seeing a revolution in the way our customers want to bank. We have been literally candidly taken aback."

He said in the past year alone, some 300 million transactions that would have traditionally been done face to face with staff have been carried out on the internet, including mobile phones.

Mr McDonald added: "We've decided there are some locations where footfall is so low our customers really aren't using those locations," he said.

"We've identified 99 branches we think we would close this year, but I have to say, this is a rolling process for us, so I don't want you to take that as a hard number."

RBS is spending £1bn package on its digital product, including providing iPads in hundreds of branches. It has closed 144 branches last year, including 102 NatWest.